Author: victorfraga

Tomorrow’s Freedom

Posted on by victorfraga

Now aged nearly 65, and held inside an Israeli prison for 22 years, Marwan Barghouthi is the person most likely to become Palestinian president (should the man and the occupied nation release themselves from their captors/colonisers). At least this is what Tomorrow’s Freedom claims. The film investigates roughly three decades in the life of a politician who “cannot be broken”, and whose will for self-determination continues to influence Palestinians everywhere. Comparisons to Mandela are inevitable and indeed explored to exhaustion. In addition to sharing the decades-long prison stint, both men have a calm demeanour and eloquent rhetoric.. The late South African revolutionary leader is featured repeatedly throughout this 97-minute documentary, including his claim that “there can be no freedom without Palestinian freedom” and his advocating for violence as a weapon against brutal oppression.

The story zigzags back and forth in time. It reveals the humble origins of Marwan, his rise to power, and – most significantly – the struggle of his family and partisans in order to release him from prison this century. There are no recent images of our protagonist because Israelis have only allowed him to be interviewed from prison once, nearly 20 years ago. His captors held him in solitary confinement for several years, and continue to inflict all sorts of psychological torture to this date in an attempt to destroy his infrangible will. He is held is a high security prison far from his native West Bank, on Israeli soil (in one of the many breaches of international law which Israel routinely makes). We learn that Marwan became a prominent warrior both in the First and the Second Intifada. He was released from jail under the terms of the Oslo Accords of 1994, which Israel quickly disregarded: in the following three years: the number of illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank doubled (from 200,000 to a staggering 400,000). This led to the Second Intifada, which in turn culminated in Marwan’s permanent arrest.

The most powerful moments of the film are the court hearings, as Israelis insult Marwan (“criminal”, “murderer”), and a judge call him a “terrorist” before the trial even began (thereby exposing the deeply biased and flawed nature of the proceedings). There is also abundant interaction with all members of his family: his wife Fadwa, his sons Qassam, Aarab, Sharaf, and his daughter Ruba. Qassam also received a lengthy prison sentence for his activist work, which ironically gave him the opportunity to spend time with his father (as the two men briefly shared the same facility). Fadwa continues to campaign exhaustively for her husband’s release, however even a prison visit becomes increasingly elusive.

The movie is dotted with pro-Palestinian statements and praise of Marwan by prominent politicians and intellectuals from around the globe, including Marxist feminist Angela David, late archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel, and even former Potus Jimmy Carter. Former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin also becomes an unlikely interviewee and ally. Some of these testimonials were captured for the film, while others are archive footage, in a documentary that blends many languages and formats. This isn’t a problem per se. The biggest issue is that the story is patchy and incoherent, while the film execution is clumsy: from the abrupt editing to the syrupy instrumental score. The camerawork is very precarious, but this is a common feature of guerrilla journalism, and I couldn’t blame it on the two sister directors, who double down as DoPs. On the other hand, there could have been more work at post-production.

Tomorrow’s Freedom provides some insight into the life and the struggle of a fascinating – and yet little-known – political leader. Ultimately, the documentary feels neither exploitative nor intimate. Just distant and incomplete. Strangely, no date is displayed for the most recent events, while the older developments are almost invariably tagged with a year. The sensation I get is that the film was finished around 2018 and left in the back burner (fridge maybe?) until now because there was limited appetite for Palestinian narratives, and then it was hastily rescued and assembled after October 7th (when the Palestinian topic became prominent again).

Worth a viewing, as long as you remain aware of the filmic limitations. Just sit back and learn a little more about the erased history of Palestinian people.

Tomorrow’s Freedom is in cinemas on Friday, April 26th.

Back to Black

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It is extremely easy and also extremely hard to make a biopic of Amy Winehouse. Hard because this is such a responsibility: the late singer authored one of the best selling albums in history (the titular Back to Black), and she ranked 26 in VH1’s prestigious 100 Greatest Women in Music list. Easy because Amy’s short career boasts a number of easily recognisable tunes that will get audiences hooked even if the film execution was extremely poor, plus her extremely turbulent lifestyle and morbid media coverage provide just the right ingredients for the perfect sob story. Back to Black elicits tears throughout, even if storytelling isn’t entirely convincing.

Newcomer Maris Abela plays Amy from adolescence until her tragically predictable and precocious death at the age of 27, in 2011. The movie is a love letter to a young woman horribly trapped in a juvenile romance, and also to Camden, the London borough where she started her career, lived, died and to which she dedicated her most important Grammy Award. This is also where she was commonly found intoxicating herself and precariously staggering home on her pumps while harassed by a swarm of scandal-thirsty paparazzi. Her regular joints The Dublin Castle (where she performed some of the first gigs) and The Good Mixer (where she met her coke-addicted hubby Blake Fielder-Civil, played here by Jack O’Connell) are prominently featured throughout the movie. Conspicuous in its absence, however, is Amy’s favourite pub, the Hawley Arms, which nearly burned down during the fire that devastated Camden Market in 2008 (Amy used her Grammy win in order to express her love for the area: “‘This is for Camden, Camden Town ain’t burning down”, a reference that becomes watered down and decontextualised in the film).

Amy was a headstrong, perhaps even obstinate, young woman. She did not follow anyone’s advice and recorded her music at her own accord, and opted to have her father Mitch (Eddie Marsan) as her manager (to the dismay of the more established agents and impresarios). And she became completely obsessed with Blake, a rowdy young man with little stability to offer her. He becomes the source of inspiration for her most famous album (she only recorded two in her brief life, the debut Frank and the iconic Back to Black), as Amy desperately grappled with unrequited love and rejection (“you go back to her and I go back to black” refers to Blake returning to his previous girlfriend Becky). He eventually go back to Amy, presumably lured by the money and fame, but ends up going to prison after becoming involved in a violent altercation. But not before they both could overcome their drug differences (Amy liked marijuana, while Blake preferred cocaine; the song lyrics so “You love blow and I love puff”) by bonding over the far more destructive class-a heroin.

Despite Amy’s self-determined attitude, she was never a feminist, and neither is Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film. Instead, this is a movie about a troubled young woman desperately seeking solace in music, and creating history-defining pieces that would move people of all ages, ages and nationalities. She is frail, she is dysfunctional and she is incoherent. It is impossible not to love and feel sorry for her as she begins her descent and inevitable demise. This predicament is vaguely relatable to the director’s. Fifty-seven-year-old London filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson had to face her own physical vulnerabilities as she struggled with cancer twice, plus she understands what it means to ruffle some feathers with a partner choice: Taylor-Johnson is married to Aaron, an actor 27 years her junior.

Abela does a very good job portraying a woman stuck between fame and juvenile love, and lapsing into drug abuse. She does not look a lot like Winehouse, and is a little less less broken and bawdy. Still, her song renditions are very convincing (even if she is ghost-singed by Amy and presumably others), and her fragile resilience entirely palpable. Marsan paints an affable and avuncular Mitch, who’s terribly proud and protective of his daughter (even is he doesn’t always prioritise her well-being above her career). It feels a little cliched, not least because his parental demeanour is broadly seen is unethical and exploitative. It feels almost like the film wishes to exonerate him. Jack O’Connell is seductive and energetic, however a questionable casting choice. He has the mainstream heartthrob looks, far removed from the Peter Doherty-ish, heroin-chic, fedora-hat-clad real Blake.

The highlight of the film are the songs (Back to Black, Fuck Me Pumps, Valerie and Love is a Losing Game are played almost in their entirety), each one structured as a mini video journeying the most recent events in Amy’s life. Otherwise the story is clumsy and all over the place, much like our rogue heroine. Chronologically structured, Back to Black has huge gaps and fails to provide a coherent account of Amy’s rise and fall. There is very little insight into how Back to Black was recorded, what happened in rehab, how her experiences on St. Lucia helped to pave the way to her death (this is where she replaced heroin with alcohol, which eventually claimed her life), etc. Aesthetically, the movie lacks a certain je-ne-sais-quoi. In other others, it does not possess poetic freedom and narrative inventiveness. It is a movie just too conventional for a woman that refused to play by the rules.

Another problem is the superficial representation of drug abuse. Heroin addiction has devastating consequences. See Christianne F (Uli Edel, 1981) for a realistic portrayal of smack use, with genuinely harrowing cold turkey scene. Taylor-Johnson made the facile decision to make this an easily digestible, feel-good mainstream drama, thereby sanitising a genuinely horrific experience.

Still, bring your hankies: you too will bask in the colourful memories and heart-wrenching warble of this bigger-than-life singer gone too soon!

Back to Black is in cinemas everywhere on Friday, April 12th.

Our dirty questions to Shaun Dozier

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Shaun Dozier is the filmmaker behind The Problem with the Hero (2023), which showed at the San Francisco IndieFest, the Harlem and at the Naples International Film Festival, amongst other events. Shaun is a New York-based North Carolina native, and a graduate at Atlanta’s SCAD MEA film programme. He has directed films in Peru, Brazil and Mexico.

Dozier’s sophomore feature is the story of two writers. The first, Paul Green (David zum Brunnen), is a Pulitzer Prize winner who enjoys many of the privileges of a white man. The other one is Richard Wright (J. Mardrice Henderson), a black artist desperately trying to get his voice heard in the United States of the 1940s. The pair are developing a stage treatment of Wright’s Native Son, but their backgrounds and contrasting philosophies quickly come to the forefront as they try to piece together a particularly delicate scene. What starts off as a friendly discussion about narrative outcomes quickly spirals into a discussion about what the US is to them.

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Eoghan. Lyng – What was it that drew you to these two central characters? These are two intelligent men with conflicting view points who simultaneously hold immense respect for one another. In today’s polarized climate it was refreshing to portray a civil but passionate debate where both parties were still able to listen to each another.

Shaun Dozier – Green was a former soldier who believed that democracy, steered by the voices of citizens such as himself, would gradually generate the change he wished to see. Wright was a communist at the time, who saw only the entrenched interests of power and wealth gripping the nation until a revolution of the marginalised forced them to let go. For this he saw little hope. These are the viewpoints with which they began their work of turning Wright’s novel into a Broadway play.

Their initial collaboration took place over a few weeks in the summer in Chapel Hill. This was Green’s territory where he was at the height of his command, a venerable White Pulitzer Prize winning professor. Wright comes in as young Black novelist with a smash hit and a sensationally unlikable protagonist. Though the character’s unredeemable nature was the main point of Wright’s book, Green was able to convince Wright to temper his portrayal in the draft of their play which accompanied Wright back to New York.

By March, Wright had steered the play back to his original vision. Our film takes place when Green arrives to witness the ongoing rehearsals. As Green debates the changes, Wright is forced to stand up to the man that has become more than just his collaborator, but a kind of mentor and possibly friend. In Wright’s rebuttals, Green is forced to question his place in the telling and advocacy of African American stories.

EL – The film is set in the 1940s – do you think race relations have progressed to a satisfactory level in the last eighty years?

SD – There has certainly been progress, but we still have a long way to go. I can say I know as much and as little to know I am hardly the one to speak with any authority on race relations.

In terms of our story, I imagine Wright would be satisfied to see the dissolution of the tenements he so railed against, but he might be disappointed that low-income housing projects are still necessary and disproportionally house people of color. He would further be dissatisfied with the makeup of our prisons and the histories of those that live there, of those that were killed before they could even go to trial.

And clearly the fact that our story is still relevant today, yields something to our continually evolving consciousness about race as a nation. We are very much deeply involved in discussions of race. Which stories should be told? Whose perspective? Who has a right to tell that story? Who has the right to revision? Which and whose stories have worth?

EL – Richard Wright says “Let them be offended”: Is that a philosophy artists should apply to their work?

SD – Always. Art is meant to be a reflection of the human experience. Reflections can sometimes give offence. They can also inspire.

Native Son is ugly and mean, offensive. But it inspired countless adaptations and characters similar to Bigger. Possibly more importantly it inspired heated debate which is why we are still talking about it today.

EL – Orson Welles is depicted as roguish, albeit ruthless; a man determined to achieve his vision no matter the cost. Would actors tolerate Welles’s behavior today, like they did in 1941?

SD – I would hope that Orson Welles would have been sensitive enough if he were living today to adapt the most offensive of his behaviors. Perhaps he would have found better ways to inspire his cast and crews.

EL – Do you think the Native Son play might speak differently to audiences experiencing the work for the first time in this post Black Lives Matter milieu?

Native Son has been continuously performed and adapted since it first premiered. Brandon Haynes who played Bigger Thomas in our production had recently wrapped Nambi E. Kelley’s adaptation at Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, 2023), which was nominated for Best Bicture this year (and won Best Adapted Screenplay), highlights the story of a novelist who is offended by the overuse (and success) of Bigger Thomas-like characters. I believe the conversation has developed over the past 80 years, but it is still immediate and relevant.

EL – How did you come across David Zum Brunnen, and how did you know he was the right person for Paul Green?

SD – David, as the producer and actor of the previous staged version called Native, actually approached me to direct the film after speaking with our cinematographer Steve Milligan. I was fortunate to benefit from the extensive knowledge and understanding brought to our production by David and the Native team.

EL – J. Mardrice Henderson has some of the more insightful lines in the film; did he research the part rigorously?

SD – Josh (J. Mardrice) had also played Wright in the staged version and as such came to our project already thoroughly researched. As the staged version takes place entirely in one hotel room, however, we did discuss further in rehearsals the month before production, revisiting sections from Wright’s autobiography Black Boy, amongst many other sources.

EL – Would you class the film as “historical fiction”, and are there other examples of the genre that inspired your work?

SD – We tried to steer as closely as possible to the truth as we understood it while still producing a dramatically engaging film. Much was added to the film script for the sake of historical accuracy. That said, as in any biographical work, there are certainly elements of fiction.

In an attempt to break out the story from the confines of a single hotel room, I studied Danny Boyles’ Steve Jobs which takes place backstage in real time during the lead up to a stage “performance”. For inspiration on filming cinematic conversations we looked at the likes of Hunger and Frost/Nixon, amongst others.

While never leaving the theater, we knew we needed to transition between past and present as well as attempt to express the arguments of Wright and Green in a more visual way. For this we looked at Dogville, Lonestar, and the French Canadian film Lilies. We use the language of theatre, conjuring the spaces of Green’s Chapel Hill office, Bigger’s jail cell, Wright’s train, and the hotel lobby, all on the stage, transitioning from one space to another as seamlessly as possible, between cuts, or drifting between pools of light.

EL – “Enough people say the same nonsense, that it might as well be the truth,” is another killer line. Is that a commentary on the media, and the reader’s susceptibility to it?

SD – Absolutely, particularly in our age of social media where untruths and misleading opinions are so quickly disseminated and taken as fact. I am also an educator and, as we are exposed to an increasing amount of information online and in the media, I find increasingly the need to teach the skills necessary for fact checking, questioning, and evaluating sources of information.

EL – What is the central message of the film, and do you think there is a lesson that the viewers can learn from the story?

SD – Who has the right to tell a story and what are the obligations in the telling? Also the core of Wright and Green’s disagreement were conflicting fundamental beliefs and assumptions about America and the best way to incite change. My hope is that viewers would recognise the questions asked by these men are still questions we are grappling with today. Given the variety of responses we’ve had, I think it is evident there is no clear answer. It is a conversation.

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Shaun is pictured at the top of this interview.

The First Omen

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We all have to grapple with a broad selection of inner demons. In this prequel of horror classic The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976), our protagonist Margaret (in a very energetic performance by Nell Tiger Free) is hellbent on helping fellow novice Carlita (Nicole Sorace) to purge the literal Antichrist, which is allegedly residing inside her. Margaret is convinced that the hapless young woman has been impregnated by the devil, and is expecting a half-human, half-demon child that will grow up to become the young Damian (of the original movie) and take over the world.

A cryptic death scene featuring Charles Dance in the film opening, devilish iconography and foreboding music make it abundant clear from the outset that this is a traditional horror movie unabashed of the all-familiar tropes. You wouldn’t expect otherwise from a story that precedes the horrifying demonic child world domination tale exquisitely told by Donner nearly half a century ago. This is a deserving prequel that remains mostly loyal to the aesthetics of the original, even if sometimes it overdoes the orgiastic CGI.

The action takes place in Rome during the year of 1971. The impeccable mise-en-scene, the computer antics and the vaguely washed-out colour palette give the impression that the film was indeed made five decades ago. Margaret arrives in an orphanage, presumably coming from the United States (given her accent, even if the film fails to provide any information about her origins). She is welcomed by the woman in charge, a menacing nun called Sister Silva (played by a wrinkly Sonia Braga, an often overlooked Brazilian super actress; pictured below), who works under the purview of the equally foreboding Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy). The environment is tense. The sisters torture the non-conforming girls physically and psychologically, with the existence of a “bad room” being of particular concern to our protagonist.

These developments take place against a backdrop of social unrest, three years after the 1968 Revolts that shook Italy, France and much of Europe. Students were still up in arms on the streets of the Italian capital. Cardinal Lawrence and Sister Silva want to Antichrist to reserve this political phenomenon and bring people back to church (the contradiction of using “evil” in order to restore “good” is briefly acknowledged).

The First Omen boasts countless twists and turns as Margaret seeks to fit in, while also caring for poor little Carlota, and ensuring that her actions do not raise any suspicions amongst her formidable superiors. A mysterious priest called Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), who Margaret shunned at first, helps her to put the puzzles pieces together. Creepy deaths take place, presumably because the Antichrist is around (inside Carlita’s womb). The first one is a repeat of the very first suicide in the 1976 classic, with an extra inflammatory flavour. The number of the beast (“666”) MacGuffin and demonic creatures of various sorts are also an integral part of the story, as in the rest of the franchise (in total, there are six films: the original, three sequels, one remake and now the prequel). In addition, first-time director Arkasha Stevenson seems to pay respects to at least two horror classics: one of the final scenes, after Margaret survives a car crash, mirrors Isabelle Adjani’s iconic subway performance in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (1981), while a hallucinatory rape scene has Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) written all over it. These tributes are subtle and stylish.

With a duration of 120 minutes, The First Omen is mostly enjoyable to watch, with a few redundant elements hampering the narrative. Margaret befriends the rebellious Luz (Maria Caballero), and the two go out partying, in a subplot that never comes full circle. The movie boasts just too many red herrings. The surprise ending is too ambitious, and also a little awkward. In the final scenes, CGI is favoured at the expense of the performances. This is a satisfactory debut that would have benefitted from a little paring down. Less towering infernos and more facial expressions from hell. Less epic twists and more subtle turns. After all, the devil is in the detail.

The First Omen is in cinemas on Friday, April 5th.

The Top 5 dirtiest cricket movies ever made!

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Millions of people around the world have been exposed to cricket in a subtle way through movies like Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964), Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008), and Frost/Nixon (ron Howard, 2008). It is also a sport that works well as the subject of a movie, whether it’s a mystery or a true story.

So, let’s look at the top 5 best cricket movies ever made (from the lowest to the highest):

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5. Wondrous Oblivion (Paul Morrison, 2003):

The British movie Wondrous Oblivion, which came out in 2003, is about a bond between a young Jewish refugee boy from Europe and the West Indian family who lives next door to his family. The movie takes place in South London in 1960 and deals with race, friendship, and love. The boy (Sam Smith) and his neighbour Dennis (Delroy Lindo) become friends because they both love cricket. The movie won prizes at the Boston Jewish Film Festival in 2004 and the Giffoni Film Festival in 2003. It was directed and written by Paul Morrison.

Wondrous Oblivion is also pictured at the top of this article.

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4. Victory (Ravikumar Chavali, 2008):

In what movie do Allan Border, Dean Jones, Waqar Younis, Simon Jones, Sajid Mahmood, and Brett Lee all have small parts? The answer is Hindi movie Victory, which came out in 2009. The story is about Vijay Shekhawat, who is played by Harman Baweja. He gets to play for the Indian national team, which was his dream, but then he learns about the bad things that come with being famous. Even though it didn’t do well at the Indian box office, you should still watch it, if only to see how well some famous players can act.

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3. Hansie: A True Story (Regardt van den Bergh, 2008):

Hansie came out in 2008 in South Africa. It was about the country’s former captain, who went from being a national hero to a worldwide embarrassment. It’s based on the true story of Hansie Cronje and his amazing fall from fame after he got involved with Indian bookies and the match-fixing scam of 2000. It was directed by Regardt van den Bergh. The movie then shows what happened after Cronje was banned from cricket for life.

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2. Fire in Babylon (Stevan Riley, 2011):

Fire in Babylon is a British documentary about the West Indies team from the 1970s and 1980s. It came out in 2010 and got great reviews. It shows how Caribbean cricket grew as the West Indies became the most dangerous team in the world. It has comments from many past players, such as Michael Holdings, Clive Lloyd, and Sir Vivian Richards. There are three prizes for Fire in Babylon, which is a must-see for anyone interested in the past of the game.

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1. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001):

Bollywood’s 2001 picture Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India is at the top of the list. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Picture in 2002.Lagaan is still a great cricket movie, even though No Man’s Land (Danis Tanovic, 2001) beat it in that area. In an Indian town under British colonial rule, the story is about poor people who dare their masters to play a game of cricket to get rid of their crushing taxes for three years. Lagaan has also won many awards around the world and has been called one of the best 100 movies ever made.Time magazine put it on their list of the 25 best sports movies of all time.

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Mentions of merit

In the fictional world, cricket is also linked to betting and is used as a plot device, giving the author another chance to build tension and mystery. The dark side of cricket betting, from match-fixing scams to big-money online gaming such as this one, makes for great material for writers who want to explore the topics of corruption, morals, and the bad side of sports.

Examples of novels include David Baldacci’s The Fix and films such as Kai Po Che! (Abhishek Kapoor, 2013) which explore the thrills and dangers of betting on cricket, showing the dark side of the game. While such fictional depictions may sensationalize some aspects of betting on online IPL cricket betting live, they also stand out as a reminder of the real-life challenges cricket authorities have to face in their bid to crack down on match-fixing and corruption.

Other famous mentions include:

  • The Final Test. Jack Warner played Sam Palmer in Anthony Asquith’s 1953 movie about his last game for England. It is a comedy-drama, and famous players like Len Hutton, Denis Compton, and Alec Bedser make cameos.
  • Tamil Nadu 600028. This Bollywood movie from 2007 is about cricket played on the streets in India. It was written and directed by Venkat Prabhu. It looks at many things, like love, competition, and friendship in suburban India. It was nominated for several Vijay Awards, which are given to honor Tamil films.

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All these movies show the spirit of cricket, which is hard work, friendship, and love of the game. They are not only fun to watch, but they can also inspire you.

Alfred Hitchcock gets a dirty film guide!

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In terms of longevity and influence, Alfred Hitchcock proved to be one of the most enduring directors of his generation, spearheading a narrative style that was homaged by James Bond directors John Glen and Peter Hunt in later years. His status was assured to the point where his name stood comfortably beside Hollywood luminaries Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and James Cagney, becoming a director ubiquitous within the realm of celebrity culture. In his book HITCHOLOGY, film writer Neil Alcock peers at the English director’s body of work, contextualising his artistry both in the era when it was created, and how it speaks to younger generations.

The admiration for the director is evident, although HITCHOLOGY never shies away from the criticisms that are levelled at him. In his closing pages, Alcock outlines a series of lessons that filmmakers can learn from his example, citing an absence of minority cast members and a questionable depiction of women as two factors that should not be homaged. Interestingly, Hitchcock leaned on the guidance of one woman in particular: his wife Alma. A noted film editor, Alma understood the medium of cinema, providing guidance and criticism that helped her husband complete his work. “Her notes were invaluable to him,” Alcock writes; “her approval essential.”

Anxious to become a name, a face and an authority, Hitchcock made the creative decision to put his name before the film title in 1948. (The opening credit for Rope reads ‘Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope’). By the time he completed Psycho (1960), Hitchcock was popular enough to appear in the promotional materials by himself. His face became a recognisable fixture, no doubt helped by his decision to make a cameo appearance in his work. But behind the veneer stood a man who needed to support his family: In an effort to accommodate his wife and children, Hitchcock agreed to direct a musical biography on Johann Strauss II. While some of the observations are spurious (it’s highly unlikely that Hitchcock saw himself in Strauss), Alcock peers behind the public facade – or mask, if you will – to show a worker driven by his desire to complete decent work in a form of entertainment that was still in its relative infancy.

Wittily written – Alcock drily writes that Juno and The Paycock (1930) is as miserable to watch as it was for Hitchcock to complete – the book punches along with impressive economy, and Alcock packs the director’s catalogue into a tidy work that isn’t even 400 pages long. What is apparent is that Hitchcock was a commercial artist at heart, and was happy to accede to trends if it meant getting his work on the big screen. Hitchcock applied 3D to Dial M for Murder (1954), a film that utilises a variety of colourful techniques.”It’s also impossible to ignore the wildly expressionistic scene,” Alcock says, “in which Hitchcock elides an entire court case by using a head- on shot of Margot, as slivers of dialogue, coloured lights and shadows swirl menacingly around her”.

By the time he directed 1954’s Rear Window, Hitchcock was keen to build on character development over narration, culminating in a film that features one of James Stewart’s more refined performances. Rear Window became a favourite of Martin Scorsese’s, another man invested in character building a la Taxi Driver (1976). Rear Window, notably, was filmed entirely at Paramount Studios, which had become something of a habit for Hitchcock after enduring ignominy during the making of The Pleasure Garden (1925). Not only was 10,000 feet of film confiscated by Italian authorities, but Hitchcock’s room was also broken into and burgled. From that point on, he kept his narratives inside a studio, containing his madcap ideas in safe space.

Hitchcock got involved in the scripts, shaping them to fit his vision. Naturally, Alma Hitchcock got involved. “Husband and wife rarely gave themselves screen credit for their writing, but they were both knee-deep in the process,” Alcock notes, although she later demurred from his projects in an effort to focus on her role as a grandparent. Cannily, Alcock hints that had an effect on her husband’s work: “the further towards the end of Hitchcock’s filmography you get, the less believable and sympathetic the female characters become.”

Considering Hitchcock’s penchant for comedy. The fairground scene in Strangers On A Train (1951) ripples with a sexual energy that anticipates the bawdiness of James Bond’s frolics in Octopussy (John Glen, 1983). Alcock wisely litters the book with witty one-liners and frolicsome insights into the Hitchcock universe. He lets his inner critic out at various points – anyone who favours the 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much is “mad” in his eyes – but the research leads the book, exploring the director’s creative rationale. In an effort to capture the French scenery in To Catch a Thief (1955), Hitchcock opted to film aerial shots from a helicopter; a rarity in the 1950s. In an effort to satiate audience’s expectations of violence and horror in the early 1960s, Hitchcock devised a feature (The Birds, 1963) where animals terrorise humans out in the open air. And when he couldn’t produce a film that interested him on an intellectual level, Hitchcock acquiesced to Universal’s demands to adapt a Cold War Thriller for the big screen: Topaz (1969).

Endlessly inventive, ill health and old age forced Hitchcock to slow down productivity, leading to a four-year-gap between Frenzy (1972) and Family Plot (1976).The latter wound up being his last film, an oddity that has some esoteric charm, particularly in the second half. “On its own terms, Hitchcock’s swan song is a perfectly adequate comic thriller,” Alcock says,”but as far as its legacy is concerned, it’s less ‘crowning finale to an unparalleled career’ than it is ‘tricky pub quiz answer’.” Hitchcock died four years later, at the age of 80.

He left behind a body of work that spanned decades, from the early days of silent cinema, to the kaleidoscopic majesty of his 1950s’ work (to my mind, his most fertile era.) Hitchcock experimented with form, colour and scope, which gives Alcock ample room to ruminate on the director’s canon. That Alcock does it with zest, fervent research and dry wit only furthers his credit.

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Click here in order to find out more about and also to purchase your copy of HITCHOLOGY:a film-by-film guide to the style and themes.

The Trouble with Jessica

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Matt Winn wisely downplays the kitsch in a comedy that opens up as a pseudo-Agatha Christie-esque thriller, before shifting gears to become a biting critique of the British lower-middle classes.

Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) has invited three friends over before selling their lush, decidedly monied, house. She is suspicious of author and dilettante Jessica (played with voluptuous elegance by Indira Varma), a woman who is known for “sleeping with boyfriends.” Jessica interrupts Richard (Rufus Sewell), a lawyer who has skirted with the law on a number of occasions, with a rape joke of sorts. It appalls the guests who chastise her, although the table is horrified to discover Jessica perched by a tree, a noose over her neck. Sarah is distressed – will this affect the sale of the house? Undeterred, she confronts the dinner guests, and urges them to move the corpse back to another location; preferably, Jessica’s house.

The ensuing mad farce depends very heavily on the relatively unfunny idea of adultery, as it is swiftly revealed that Richard was enjoying a liaison with Jessica before her death, which leads his wife Beth (a weirdly clawing Olivia Williams) to deliver a series of pietistic monologues on what she considers to be the emblems of decent British behaviour. Beth is the most underwritten character of the five – Williams’ only direction seems to be “nagging wife” – but Sarah makes for an interesting lead, flitting from devious to disconsolate over the course of the film. Henderson has a few crassly funny one-liners, not least in her interactions with one particularly nosy neighbour, who is determined to get an autograph from Jessica. Tom reluctantly goes along with the ruse and moves the body from garden to toilet at the appropriate moments.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the film is that Tudyk (a Broadway performer who starred in Spamalot in his younger days) isn’t the funniest male performer in the film. Believe it or not, Sewell, who nominally appears in harder hitting fodder like Scoop (Philip Martin, 2024), is the wackiest, effortlessly chewing the scenery as a snotty-nosed lawyer fearful for his career if this news breaks on the internet. Written with tart-tongued brio, the film zips along at a measured pace, and the zany central premise certainly lives up to the title. Where it falters is in its execution, particularly when the guests decide to move the body across London, on the pretext that their fallen friend is “drunk”. Invariably, the body flops around, leading to a collection of disconcerted gasps among the ensemble, before parking beside a series of drunken teenagers; two of them in mid-coitus. These jokes fall flat, although they never quite descend to the levels of bad taste, and Sewell delivers a riotuous, epiphet driven attack at the couple caught in flagrante delicto (“Could you do your fucking on someone else’s car?”)

Sadly, the film loses its nerve during the final third, as Henderson’s character queries the brevity of life. Considering the nature of the movie, director Matt Winn would be forgiven for including a short dissertation on the aftermath of suicide, but it sits at odd with the film’s anarchic undercurrents. Yet there’s something endearing to the way Sarah and Tom smile at each other, a couple who have made this far into their marriage, and despite the bumps – unemployment, unrest and dead bodies – there is no doubt that their love is true.

This sticky British comedy will probably get an even ropier American makeover in the future, where the grit will almost certainly get replaced by a bawdier, almost vaudevillian, undertone.

The Trouble with Jessica is in cinemas on Friday, April 5th. Just click here for more information.

Urban Jungle

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In 1991, Nuneaton-born director Ken Loach released Riff-Raff, an urgently directed film that peered at building sites with as much raw honesty as he could muster, and now he returns to the mechanical landscape with Urban Jungle, a film where he reunites with Brian Cox of Hidden Agenda (1990). Cox plays Garry Henderson, a builder who spends his time counting down the hours until retirement, when he spots the loveliest woman he has ever seen in his life. It’s Maryam (Ebla Mari), a Palestinian woman who suggests that they should elope together, to East Jerusalem. This wild possibility tempts him except for the fact that his union buddies will shun him, not forgetting his wife Margaret (Ana de Armas, making her debut in a Ken Loach feature), who has tended to him for 10 years.

Arguably Loach’s most unabashedly romantic feature, the film is also noteworthy for a 10-minute gun fight, which was done in one impressive take. Cox’s Henderson spends much of the shootout covered in sweat, his eyes turning to the love for both the socialist party – which is led by Marina Vazquez, who is played rather wonderfully by Penelope Cruz – and the mistress he longs to run to. This particular silhouette has a political undertone, representing the struggle between the proletariats (the builders) and the capitalists (the architects) through the lexicon of violence.

But it’s not all bullet-fire and pecs: Urban Jungle features one of the most tender romantic scenes Loach has yet filmed, positioning the camera just above Garry and Maryam mid-coitus. They talk about philosophy, discussing the ramifications of the Marxists should they take a more liberal stance towards the conflict in the Middle East. Garry pictures himself in uniform, the sounds of rockets ricocheting across the living room, and he recognises his mediocrity both as a hero and, more fatally, as a lover. Cox hasn’t been this committed in years, and Cruz – the maniacal Vazquez – acquits herself nicely as a sparring partner. Mari has some of the film’s more memorable lines (“Socialism has been here as long as the Bible, but they never put a price tag on it” is a particular hoot). Armas does less well as the clawing Margaret, a Liverpudlian who spends half her time speaking in a Cuban accent (perhaps they’re being knowing, but “Go back to your puta inamorata” is a curious choice of zinger for Armas to utter).

Much of it is statically filmed, but the film opens a variety of rapid cuts that makes Liverpool come alive, as if to disprove the notion that Liverpool is a city based on industry alone. The film chugs along with a rock heavy energy, which might explain why Loach films a band performing a raucous version of Bella Ciao in a café populated by university students. At 140 minutes, the feature will test even the most hardened of Loach disciples, but there’s no denying the chemistry between Cox and Mari onscreen, particularly during the montage in Bani Suheila; a dream sequence that rivals Terry Gilliam at his most daring.
When Garry returns to the building site midway through the film, he does so with a purpose he had never thought possible. In a line thought to be Cox’s own invention, Garry tells Maryam “We really are screwed, so why don’t we just fuck?”

We’ve rarely seen Cox be so animal in cinema, but he has a magnetic twinkle in the eye, making the love scenes more believable. But Cruz is the real scene-stealer as the sloganeering, jeering leader of the workers, all sparkle eyes and gestures. Loach elicits a smooth performance from Cox, and a career-best from Cruz. This production was secretly filmed over the course of just two weeks in Liverpool.

Urban Jungle is in the best cinemas across the UK on Friday, April 5th.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus

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The late Ryuichi Sakamoto is a musical icon of the highest order. He is a master craftsman of his unique brand of music; a hybrid genre with classical undertones and electronic magnetism that began in the 1970s and resulted in an incredible 40-year-long career. Attempting to capture the essence of Sakamoto’s career in words would be a disservice to the man’s status. However, before the great musician died of cancer in March 2023, he gifted us something for one last time, in the form of a concert film, documenting Sakamoto’s final performance Sakamoto. To call Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus a mere concert film though would be discourteous because this is a personally curated marathon that showcases all his fabulous work from over the years, while also being directed by the man’s own son, Neo Sora, in one last emotional and personal touch.

It looks like one giant nonstop performance from Sakamoto, but in reality, it was filmed over a week in 2022 in Tokyo. The set-up is composed of a really sharp but minimalist aesthetic with Sakamoto being the centrepiece and letting his music do all the expressionism for him. Sora and his father set up the project as a final swansong while the latter was still in good enough health to be able to perform, but there are moments in the performance that highlight the man’s ailing health offering a stark realisation for what was just around the corner. A master craftsman needs a tool though, and his was in the form of the most gorgeous Yamaha grand piano placed in the middle of the stage. Now, with the scene set – finished by a lamp that illuminates him and this great instrument of his – Sakamoto takes us on a journey through 20 of his most defining pieces of music.

This musical adventure begins simply from the back of Sakamoto as he readies himself for his coup de grâce. The start is so beautifully sombre before it gradually builds and builds to different levels and down various paths like an adventure should. It becomes a voyage of musical magnificence; the classical sound that echoes throughout is a genre that should be enjoyed by everyone at a specific moment in their life. The choice to engulf the film in a mist of black and white only adds to the special aesthetic and marries ever so well with the overriding bleakness that bubbles from beneath the performance.

Through the direction of Sora and the skill of the film’s cinematographer Bill Kirstein, each camera angle was specifically chosen to emphasise Sakamoto’s swansong – although, it’s not something that needs assistance. Every camera angle is special; it’s an interesting menagerie that showcases another section of the piano, or a different part of Sakamoto’s body that can be seen through the smallest gap from his majestic instrument. Sometimes it might be the reflection of his face shown through the piano’s shining black wood, but it’s clear to see that the aim was for the camera to become a fly on the wall so it could highlight how in tandem Sakamoto is with his partner of more than 40 years.

For all of Opus’s breathtaking qualities, and there is an awful lot of them, we cannot forget the dark undertone that hides beneath the film’s great majesty. You will often notice during the film’s proceedings that there are a lot of breaks, whether it’s the vision of an empty chair or Sakamoto slowly taking a long breath. It’s a metaphor for the man’s mortality; the struggle to maintain his long-standing professionalism and the losing battle with his health – it is very gentle, however, and never too harsh of an experience, even during the moment in which he cries out for a break, as fatigue quickly settling in.

What do we know Sakamoto for overall though? For some, it might be his eclectic film scores that have graced iconic pictures over the years. His Oscar win for the creation of a breathtaking score in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1988) was a defining moment, as well as another Golden Globe win for Bertolucci’s next film, The Sheltering Sky (1990). In more recent years, Sakamoto’s work in creating the otherworldly musical composition that shrouded Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant (2015) brought him back into the minds of film fans worldwide as well. But he was first thrust into the film world for his work on Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983; he also played one of the leading roles), which produced his pièce de resistance, his magnum opus if you will, the song of the same name created for that film that left a long-standing impression on the world.

It seems fitting actually, that the final song that plays him out in Opus is that very same astonishing piece of music which successfully delivers the perfect climax to the film. It was laid out at the beginning but it’s something that needs to be reiterated for a full understanding: Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus is more than a concert film, it’s one that not only explores the music of a legendary figure but also celebrates the life of a man who was at the pinnacle of his work ,and an artist who inspired countless more (genres too) over the years. These kinds of films are not for everyone; they can be a slog, but if you appreciate the arts and respect talent when you see or hear it, then you need to make this a film for you, so you can celebrate the great Ryuichi Sakamoto and the magnificent legacy he has left behind.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus is in cinemas across the UK on Friday, March 29th. On BFI Player on Friday, May 3rd.

Silver Haze

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Franky (Vicky Knight) is in her early 20s, living with her absent mother and inseparable sister Leah (Charlotte Knight). She works as a nurse at the local hospital, in a sleepy working-class town somewhere in South East England. Her body is covered in horrific burns from a childhood accident 15 years earlier. Franky is still seeking answers as to what exactly happened on the tragic day, and why her father abandoned her since. Despite her physical and psychological scars, Franky is a strong and sensible young woman. She is capable of injecting a sense of joy and control even at the most difficult moments.

She bonds with Florence (Esmé Creed-Miles), a former patient with impulsive and suicidal tendencies. They seem to complete each other, Franky with her sense and sensibility, and Florence with her wild instincts. Despite our protagonist claiming that she is heterosexual, the connection inevitably morphs into full-blown romance. Franky moves into Florence’s house in Southend-on-Sea, where she lives with her kind and tolerant grandmother Angela (Angela Bruce) and her autistic brother Jack (Archie Bridgen). Angela is a lonely black woman in search of love at old age. It is never clear why Franky gives up a broken home in favour of another one (Florence’s relationship with her family is turbulent at best), but she does feel comfortable in the new environment, and develops an affection for her new in-laws. The coastal town provides some sort of emotional healing, with its extensive funfairs and pier.

Silver Haze succeeds at providing a snapshot into the life of working-class Britain. The settings are very realistic, with a little dreamy youth texture being added for extra bite (also firmly moving the film away from social realism territory). Knight’s performance also deserves praise, as does the frankness with which the Dutch director Polak and her countrywoman cinematographer Tibor Dingelstad treat her body disfigurement. In fact, the film is loosely based on Knight’s own personal life.

Franky, Florence, Angela and Jack (Franky and Florence all outcasts, and this presumably helps to forge a sense of complicity. The problem is that there is very little chemistry between the characters. There are too many sudden, profound bondings and subplots in a relatively short period of time. Some of the editing feels poor paced and abrupt. The ambitious script feels overworked and contrived, and so the action lacks spontaneity. Strangely, Polak signs the script entirely on her own, not even Knight (on whose life the film is allegedly based) is credited. It may have been through countless script labs and hands, and was designed to tick all of the BFI diversity standards. It works well on a social and also on an industry level, but much less so on a dramatic one. A pervasive and at times irritating indie emo music score does little to engage audiences. Still, worth a viewing.

Silver Haze is in cinemas on Friday, March 29th. It premiered in 2023 at the Panorama section of the 73rd Berlinale, where it won the prestigious Teddy Jury Award.

Green Border (Zielona granica)

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Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border is a passionate and poignant portrayal of the plight of Asian and African refugees (particularly from Syria and Afghanistan) attempting to enter Poland via its southern border with Belarus.

The film is divided into numerous chapters: the personal stories of refugees. They include a young border guard and his family, a group of activists, and psychotherapist Julia (Maja Ostaszewska). Each one of these stories unfolds and complements each other in a clear and dramatically fulfilling way. The.emotional journeys are colossal, and genuinely moving. The characters face an ethical dilemma: should you follow your human instincts or state rules? This year’s international Oscar winner Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer) deals with a similar topic. a family chooses to ignore the extermination camp immediately adjacent to their home. Perhaps they are able to do so because they do not see the suffering – they only hear it. In Green Border, some people too opt to ignore the suffering of the refugees. Others put their heart and soul into helping their fellow human beings, even if that means risking their own safety and freedom.

The most spectacular change is that of Julia. At first, she tell her online patients that there is no point in getting involved in politics because they can’t change anything. After witnessing some extremely brutal incidents on the border, she decides to take matters into her own hands, and takes risks that few dare. A border guard is torn between duty and trauma. In some ways, he’s proud of what he does. Plus, he has to provide for his family. Yet he decides to lend a hand to an “illegal” refugee, allowing humanity to prevail above compliance and complicity. Meanwhile, Polish authorities welcome Ukrainian refugees with open arms. Despite the warm reception, these people too are traumatised. Green Border makes it abundantly clear that that leaving one’s home in circumstances of severe adversity is never easy, and that host nations have a moral obligation to treat asylum seekers in a humane and respectful way.

The political context is complicated. Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko facilitated the transfer of Asian and African refugees to Belarus with a view that they could then cross the border to Poland, in the European Union. This arrangement was designed to create problems. and it was never sanctioned by the EU or even discussed with the Polish authorities. As a result, Syrian and Afghan refugees find themselves treated as illegal aliens literally thrown back into Belarus, through barbed wires fences. Some perish during their attempts to seek asylum in Poland. The situation on the border has been the subject of protests in the liberal Polish media. There have been street demonstrations against the treatment of these refugees. The suggestion has been that they are not taken in – contrary to international treaties – because they are not white, and also because most are Muslims.

Shot in black and white in documentary style, Green Border evokes familiar WW2 images. These characters are reminiscent of the resistance soldiers, hiding in the forests, chased and often murdered by the Nazis. Here, a senior border officer instructs young guards to be merciless to the non-European refugees coming through from Belarus because they aren’t human. “Don’t be taken by supposedly heart rendering stories about their children” , he explains. ” They often buy them in order to gain your sympathy, and they then will sell them on, or worse’.

This is a controversial, radical and bold movie, with a harrowing subject and also a touch of optimism. The state-controlled, conservative media accused Holland of being “anti-Polish”. The 75-year-old filmmaker is no stranger to political messages, yet Green Border goes a step further. This is a rallying call for action against injustice and racism. In other words, Green Border is an activist film. The epilogue stresses that white, blue-eyed Ukrainian refugees have been granted completely different privileges to the ones from Syria or Afghanistan .These people are victims of racial and religious discrimination.

Green Border premiered in the Official Competition of the 80th Venice Film Festival, in September 2023. It showed at the Kinoteka Film Festival in London. It’s in cinemas on Friday, June 21st.